The article "Pesticide allegations trip up Coke and Pepsi" (Aug. 23) presents the furor over pesticide-contaminated Coke and Pepsi in India as a cautionary tale for multinational corporations doing business in developing countries.

Perhaps another cautionary message is due. The multinational companies should stop viewing developing countries only in terms of rising numbers of middle-class households that they can sell their products to without adhering to the same environmental and health standards they meet in the West. And until that happens, nongovernmental organizations should continue to monitor the operations of these big companies.

Coke and Pepsi are fortunate that the Indian government has not ordered a recall of their products, which in a country of over one billion would have certainly taken the fizz out of their operations.

Turning over tax collection to private tax "vigilantes" will provide cover for tax cheats with fat checkbooks able to buy off those snooping into their tax dodging. Not content with laying off qualified IRS inspectors, this latest gambit is yet another way of paying off top Republican Party campaign contributors. Hired tax vigilantes and private security goons are the road back to the 19th-century values of the American West so cherished by the cowboy from Texas.

Arthur Lieber, Gland, Switzerland

<b>Wal-Mart and politics</b>

Regarding "Wal-Mart a flash point in U.S. political debate" by Floyd Norris (Letter from America, Aug. 21): H. Lee Scott Jr., the chief executive of Wal- Mart, is quoted as saying, "Twice as many Americans shop at Wal-Mart over the course of a year than voted in the last presidential election."